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Washington City Paper

Tomatometer-approved publication.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Mercy (2026) Chris Klimek There’s a perfect if unintended harmony of form and content in Mercy: This harebrained real-time whodunit about an accused killer standing trial before an AI judge appears to have been written, directed, and performed via algorithm.
Posted Jan 27, 2026  Edit critic review
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) Chris Klimek Letting us watch Fiennes lip-synch to Iron Maiden can only forgive so much.
Posted Jan 22, 2026  Edit critic review
Strange Days (1995) Pat Padua "...chillingly prescient in so many other ways, an opening volley for a new century that would unfold in ways we could never have predicted."
Posted Jan 15, 2026  Edit critic review
Marty Supreme (2025) Lydia Wei The action is fast-paced, frenetic, and riveting.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) Chris Klimek It gives us more of everything that was great about the last one, but with too little that feels new.
Posted Dec 23, 2025  Edit critic review
The Housemaid (2025) Alan Zilberman Feig could have easily cut an hour to make a breezy, nasty work that would scarcely give anyone time to breathe. Instead, The Housemaid plods along, inspiring more of a shrug than the catharsis it dearly craves.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
Mother's Baby (2025) Lydia Wei Leuenberger imbues her performance with a quiet, observant dignity, and even when Julia’s actions grow more and more extreme, you never lose your steadfast faith in the truth of her perceptions.
Posted Dec 12, 2025  Edit critic review
Jay Kelly (2025) Chris Klimek It never pierces the shell of Clooney’s innate charisma, no matter how many friends and colleagues we see his alter ego screw over—certainly not enough to make us buy it as a character study.
Posted Dec 12, 2025  Edit critic review
The Secret Agent (2025) Alan Zilberman It’s the lively, freewheeling quality of The Secret Agent that makes it so compelling. Its characters find passion and community amid a state that seeks absolute control because, after years under a dictatorship, dignity is its own kind of rebellion.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
The Stranger (2025) Alan Zilberman The Stranger is a minor triumph of style serving substance. The gorgeous depiction of mid-century Algiers, coupled with Voisin’s screen presence, are absorbing because Meursault’s conduct remains tantalizingly elusive—at least until the defiant climax.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Kontinental '25 (2025) Alan Zilberman There is a lot to consider and debate in this film, but it ultimately unfolds like a thought exercise. With its deadpan comic discursions and romantic trysts, Jude has created the kind of art-house fare that’s more fun to discuss than it is to experience.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Young Mothers (2025) Alan Zilberman Raw emotion defines the untrained actor’s performance and offers a reminder of what the Dardennes can achieve when their unique storytelling method reaches its high point.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Little Trouble Girls (2025) Alan Zilberman Splitting the difference between Whiplash and Call Me By Your Name, the Slovenian coming-of-age drama Little Trouble Girls is sharply observed and sincere.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Case 137 (2025) Alan Zilberman To watch how bad cops lie and distort the truth is to share Stéphanie’s simmering rage. Only then can we see the film’s provocative thesis: Good cops are secretly idealistic, no matter their taciturn, borderline cynical exterior.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Miroirs No. 3 (2025) Alan Zilberman Fans of 2015’s Phoenix and 2018’s Transit may be frustrated by this more minor undertaking. But if you let go and ride the vibe then you might forget the director’s masterpieces and long for company this nurturing.
Posted Dec 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Eternity (2025) Lydia Wei It’s actually a very good rom-com, especially once you stop grappling with Luke as a serious romantic contender and accept him as the handsome plot device he is meant to be.
Posted Dec 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Hamnet (2025) Chris Klimek While Agnes is the focus, Mescal’s performance is just as accomplished.
Posted Dec 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Satan Jawa (2017) Pat Padua What makes Setan Jawa remarkable is that—with inspiration drawn from wayang shadow puppet theater and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu—it’s a black-and-white silent film.
Posted Nov 25, 2025  Edit critic review
Wicked: For Good (2025) Chris Klimek If you like your Wicked with more wearied resignation, less singing, and less Bowen Yang, then this is the shorter, sadder second act for you
Posted Nov 24, 2025  Edit critic review
Sneakers (1992) Chris Klimek It’ll put a smile on your face without raising your pulse.
Posted Nov 24, 2025  Edit critic review
Train Dreams (2025) Alan Zilberman Joel Edgerton’s performance is a moving blend of character and performer, giving his performance a powerful quality because we can see how much is held back.
Posted Nov 20, 2025  Edit critic review
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) Alan Zilberman Not only does Johnson find a clever solution to an "impossible" crime, he uses the mystery genre to explore religion’s place in modern life. In more ways than one, his devout hero needs faith in order to survive.
Posted Nov 20, 2025  Edit critic review
Peter Hujar's Day (2025) Pat Padua "A fascinating drama, its 16mm aesthetic transporting the viewer into the storied past of the New York art world."
Posted Nov 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Stop Making Sense (1984) Pat Padua Despite the wild eyes and non sequiturs, Byrne’s vision is accessible and charismatic. It’s incredibly moving that someone so clearly awkward and uncomfortable can be himself and make money from it
Posted Nov 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025) Lydia Wei Now You Don’t is still a goof, for sure, the type of film that’ll break your brain if you try too hard to think about the magic or the plot holes. But it’s fun.
Posted Nov 14, 2025  Edit critic review
It Was Just an Accident (2025) Alan Zilberman Panahi loathes authoritarianism, but his alternative offers no easy answers. It’s this thrilling provocation and acknowledgment of humanity that elevates It Was Just an Accident beyond a mere thriller.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (2025) Chris Klimek Let it suffice to say that this nail-biter never relieves the tension it builds from its opening frames.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025) Chris Klimek The movie is resoundingly … not an embarrassment.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Frankenstein (2025) Alan Zilberman In high Gothic style, the story of the mad scientist and his hideous creation has never been more visually sumptuous. With terrific performances to boot, del Toro’s long-awaited film is the definitive movie version of the classic novel.
Posted Oct 28, 2025  Edit critic review
Urchin (2025) Alan Zilberman Director Harris Dickinson realizes, with a lot of confidence for a debut filmmaker, that he serves his hero better by letting us share his life, rather than any false sense of rescue.
Posted Oct 28, 2025  Edit critic review
Anemone (2025) Alan Zilberman It rises above the mere trappings of his nepo baby roots. It has some stirring imagery, and the performances—his father is the star, after all—are terrific. But its intense, uncompromising nature is also a weakness.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 (2025) Alan Zilberman It does not take a Ph.D. in literature to recognize how public life is increasingly Orwellian, so the fundamental error in the new documentary Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 is how it mistakes surface-level pattern recognition with insight.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
The Smashing Machine (2025) Chris Klimek At the end of Smashing Machine, I was left puzzled as to why Safdie wanted to take on this project at all.
Posted Oct 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Tenet (2020) Chris Klimek Tenet’s formal experimentation is more audacious and original than the story it’s telling, but the story is pretty... wild, too.
Posted Sep 29, 2025  Edit critic review
One Battle After Another (2025) Alan Zilberman Though Anderson despairs about the sick influential men who meet in secret, there’s space for dogged hope as well—whether it’s in the unspoken obligations that define collective struggle or the ephemeral joy of a night on the couch.
Posted Sep 26, 2025  Edit critic review
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Douglas Corzine Few films deploy nostalgia as effectively as Meet Me in St. Louis.
Posted Sep 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Purple Rain (1984) Douglas Corzine Purple Rain features some of the most thrilling musical sequences ever put on film.
Posted Sep 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) Sarah Marloff A masterpiece in tastemaking.
Posted Sep 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Cabaret (1972) Orrin Konheim Whereas musicals have traditionally aimed to uplift and elate with song, Cabaret aims to provoke and comment on a darker time.
Posted Sep 15, 2025  Edit critic review
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Chris Klimek In this third feature, Anderson’s much-parodied signature style of framing and performance became fully formed.
Posted Sep 15, 2025  Edit critic review
The Long Walk (2025) Alan Zilberman Based on the audible sound of choking back tears that filled the theater, I was not the only emotional person in the auditorium, a clear indication that The Long Walk creates a space for viewers to bring their own history to this story.
Posted Sep 10, 2025  Edit critic review
Splitsville (2025) Alan Zilberman Although their follow-up is less of a surprise than The Climb, the filmmakers still find intriguing ways to explore their favorite topic: toxic, self-destructive romance.
Posted Sep 09, 2025  Edit critic review
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Chris Klimek Lee’s filmmaking has always been closer to movie-verse than to movie-prose, and he’s freestyling here, letting scenes play longer and end more ambiguously than a filmmaker beholden to studio notes ever could.
Posted Aug 25, 2025  Edit critic review
Weapons (2025) Alan Zilberman Parts of Weapons are hilarious, albeit in a macabre way, so it is best to see it with a packed house. Because, like any good crowd-pleaser, the shared experience and group reactions are a huge part of the fun.
Posted Aug 19, 2025  Edit critic review
The Naked Gun (2025) Chris Klimek It’s a high-velocity gag-o-rama that just barely hits 90 minutes if you stay through the credits.
Posted Aug 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Oh, Hi! (2025) Alan Zilberman The compositions and edits telegraph to the audience that this dilemma is just a cute misunderstanding, not anything dangerous—an assurance Oh, Hi! does not need a safe word.
Posted Jul 25, 2025  Edit critic review
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore (2025) Alan Zilberman It expects hearing audiences to adjust to its approach, kind of like how deaf people must contend with the hearing world. Matlin is as sharp and charismatic as ever, making this film a rare documentary where form and subject complement one another.
Posted Jul 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Heads of State (2025) Chris Klimek Call it the Tyranny of Low Expectations, but Heads of State is far more buoyant and amusing than one could reasonably expect a Prime Video original to be.
Posted Jul 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Heat (1995) Noah Gittell The plotting in Heat is immaculate.
Posted Jul 03, 2025  Edit critic review
F1 The Movie (2025) Alan Zilberman Like the film itself, all Kosinski's best efforts never accomplish anything beyond looking and sounding extremely expensive.
Posted Jun 30, 2025  Edit critic review
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